Kreia

Kreia (Born 4,031 BBY - Died 3,951 BBY) is a fictional character from the Star Wars Expanded Universe and from the game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. Kreia is the first non-player character that the player, in the role of the Jedi Exile, encounters, and she plays a major role in the game's story, acting as a mentor to the Jedi Exile. A former Jedi Master and one of the few survivors of the Jedi Civil War and its aftermath, Kreia is secretive and manipulative, and her true history and motivations remain a mystery throughout most of the game.

As part of Gamespy's 2005 Game of the Year awards, Kreia received the award for "Best Character."

Background
In the course of the game, it is eventually revealed that Kreia is Darth Traya, a Sith Lord. She took the name after being exiled from the Jedi Order. Darth Traya is one of the three Sith the title of the game refers to (the others being Darth Nihilus and Darth Sion). Prior to her fall from grace, she had taught Revan in the Jedi ways. Kreia was consumed by guilt after the Jedi Civil War, wondering if her teachings had led to Revan's fall. She traveled to Malachor V, which she sensed as Revan's last location and, corrupted by the dark side, embraced the secrets of the Sith.

Kreia discovered an academy on Malachor V known as the Trayus Academy. The academy was apparently an ancient Sith ruin, so it is unknown if Kreia named the academy after herself, or herself after the academy. It is quite possible that the existence of this structure might have been why the Mandalorians treated Malachor V with religious reverence.

Among her allies in exile were her students, Darth Nihilus and Darth Sion. Even when she was a Sith, Kreia had some notion that neither the light nor dark side of the Force was superior to the other. Due to the fact her teachings incorporated light side concepts (e.g. she never believed in power or destruction for its own sake), Sion and Nihilus grew weary of her. They betrayed her, stripped her of power, and exiled her. She described her fall from power thus:

:"There are dark places in the galaxy, where few tread. Ancient centers of learning, of knowledge. But I did not walk alone. To be united by hatred is a fragile alliance at best. But my will was not law. There were disagreements, ambition . . . and hunger for power. There are techniques within the Force against which there is no defense. I was cast down, stripped of my power, exiled. I suffered indignities, and fell into darkness."

Kreia would refine her beliefs while wandering the galaxy, eventually coming to view the Force as being a sort of uncaring, insidious god that uses the lives of sentients as pawns in a pernicious game of balance. This, she thought, was evidenced by the widespread occurrences of destruction and death that had persistently transpired throughout the galaxy to that point, many of which could be traced to a conflict between Force-sensitives. Yet, Kreia blamed neither the Jedi nor the Sith, but rather the very thing they had both come to draw and rely upon: the Force itself. She was, however, upset with the Jedi and the Sith for being too "caught up in the game" to realize how the Force was manipulating them.

After being exiled from the Jedi Order when she was forced to shoulder the blame for Revan's corruption, and again after she was exiled from Malachor V by her impatient Sith students Nihilus and Sion, Kreia had thus experienced betrayals from, and saw the flaws of, both the light and dark sides of the Force. These unique experiences disillusioned her and forced her to refine her ways of thinking.

When she heard about the Jedi Exile, she saw proof that life could exist without the Force, which she saw as disproof of the traditional dogma of both the Sith and Jedi that the Force and life itself were inseparable by nature. This renewed Kreia's confidence in her personal beliefs and fueled her desire to learn more of the Exile's personal motivations. By the end of her adventures with the Exile, Kreia had discovered that certain tragedies can leave wounds in the Force, which sometimes make it difficult to hear and be used. These "echoes," as Kreia called them, provided a possible avenue through which it was possible to attack the Force itself. Her discovery was due in no small part to the Exile, who, at Malachor V, created an echo large enough that Kreia was able to connect the tragedy that occurred there to the wound created in the Force. According to Kreia, those who had chosen death (or the Jedi who chose the Dark Side) over a life devoid of the Force were not strong enough to deserve life. Her desire to prevent unnecessary death in the future was the overbearing motivation that cultivated her hatred for the Force.

Kreia envisioned a galaxy that would choose not to acquiesce to the will of the Force. She thought she could achieve this by showing how one could willingly abnegate the Force and eventually become stronger for it, and it was the Exile who was a living testament to this. In her teachings with the Jedi Exile, she emphasized how dependent the Jedi and Sith were on the Force, and how they had become flawed for it. By making the Exile her protégé, she hoped her message would resonate with future force-sensitives so they would choose to use the Force without necessarily bending to either extreme, and certainly not to the point where they would choose death over life without the Force. Ultimately, though, she dreamed of a galaxy lacking of the Force altogether, as it was her belief that the galaxy would be better off that way.

Personality
As a person, Kreia was manipulative, cynical, and constantly wary of the intentions of others.

Kreia often advises the Exile to look beyond surface appearances and reminds the player that actions often have unintended consequences. If the player's score in the Light Side becomes high enough, Kreia will argue that indiscriminate compassion weakens the beneficiaries by disallowing them the mental and physical enrichment that life's challenges inherently procure. Ultimately, such compassion thus weakens the very people it is intended to help, cheapening their experience and leaving them more ill-prepared for dealing with things on their own. On the other hand, if the player's score in the Dark Side becomes high enough, Kreia will argue that by refusing to help others, the Exile is not acting in his or her own best interest. By taking on the challenges of others, she explains, the Exile will have more opportunities to grow and become stronger.

After being betrayed by those closest to her, Kreia began to expect the worst from the people around her. As the Jedi Exile's circle of companions grew, Kreia came to see how these companions could be used for her own ends, and sometimes ensured their loyalty using unscrupulous methods. For example, she reads the mind of Atton Rand, learned of his dark history, and used that to blackmail him into the Exile's service. She also tempted the Mandalorian leader, Mandalore, with knowledge of Revan's fate in order to ensure that he would not betray the Exile.

A master of manipulation, Kreia also used betrayal and deception to achieve her goals. She lied to the Exile at the beginning of their quest, claiming that the Jedi Council was responsible for the Exile's being severed from the Force. Kreia knew this would lead the Exile to seek out the surviving members of the Jedi Council, which would allow Kreia to kill them. On Onderon, Kreia lied to Colonel Tobin about the existence of many Jedi in a Jedi Academy on Telos. Kreia did this because she knew that Tobin would relay this to his true Master, Darth Nihilus, who would not be able to resist the chance to replenish himself and would recklessly assault Telos. This left Nihilus vulnerable to the assault of the Mandalorians and the Exile.

Despite these traits, Kreia was not the witch that many had dismissed her as. She had a softer side to her personality that was more apparent when she was around the Jedi Exile. "You are beautiful to me," she once told the Exile, referring to her being the living proof of her philosophies. In fact, Kreia once expressed that she would go so far as to let the entire galaxy die in order to ensure the life of the Exile. Such expressions left little doubt as to her zealous devotion regarding her beliefs.

Though Kreia was intelligent and quite powerful in her own right, she was also wise enough to know that her philosophies would be disregarded as fanatical by both the Jedi and the Sith. Because of this, she preferred to fly beneath the radar, often using her own power to shield her identity from other force-sensitives who might have known her, and could have otherwise detected her. She was not outspoken about her convictions. Only by carefully employing her manipulative tactics was she able to successfully convert the Exile to her cause. And through the Exile, she hoped, many more would follow.

Powers and abilities

Kreia had the ability to wield three or more lightsabers in combat, holding each of them aloft with the Force, and having them fight with a will of their own. This ability is also associated with the ancient Dark Lord of the Sith Exar Kun.

A cursory glance leads many to believe that Kreia's eyes were somehow damaged, but actually, as she reveals to the Exile, they had atrophied from age and disuse. She could have repaired her own eyesight, but she refused to do so, arguing that natural sight is nothing more than a distraction to the superior practice of perceiving the world through the Force.

Kreia was also uniquely able to accurately predict future happenings that were thousands of years into the future, spanning all the way to the fall of the Republic which occurred about 4,000 years after her death. Her clairvoyance was specific enough that she was able to predict the end of Jango Fett by the hand of Mace Windu on Geonosis. Shortly before her death, one of her predictions regarding the Mandalorians went as follows: "They will die a death that will last millennia, until all that remains is their code, their history, and, in the end, the shell of their armor upon the shell of a man, too easily slain by a Jedi."

Like Sidious and Vader, Darth Traya's name suggests another word: betrayal.

According to Chris Avellone's comments on the Obsidian Entertainment Forum, she is likely to be 50 years old, but also says "like Yoda, who knows", indicating that her true age is still a mystery. Avellone also stated that Kreia is heavily inspired from Palpatine.

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